As an old geezer, who grew up in Durango in the 1950s and 1960s, whose family settled in the Four Corners in the 1880s, and who, as a reporter and editor for the Durango Mountain Eagle, covered planning (or the lack thereof) in La Plata County in the 1970s, I have a warning.
Homebuyers should know that “gentle” creeks like Lightner, Junction, Grimes, Hermosa or whichever, in minutes, can become canyon-scouring monsters.
La Plata County has done little to keep development out of 10-, 20- or 30-year flood plains, or areas that frequently flood. For houses built post-1970, it’s “Buyer beware!”
And – considering the ghastly flood along the Guadalupe River in Texas – ask, “What warning systems exist if 8 inches of rain fall upstream overnight send a wall of water downstream?”
Beginning in 1970, La Plata County experienced decades of explosive growth in an atmosphere of “a man’s property is his to do with as he pleases.” That included, in my view, despite harm it might cause to others.
One effort by some residents and one county commissioner to get basic planning in rural areas resulted in those who tried to voice support being, literally, shouted down by those opposed to any planning in any form.
Older areas of Pagosa Springs, on high ground, were not flooded in recent floods. At Vallecito, a 1957 flood – so huge and with the reservoir imprudently high at the beginning of the summer rainy season – it nearly took out Vallecito’s dam. Nonetheless, few houses were damaged along Vallecito Creek because the flood plain was undeveloped.
In the Animas Valley, before decades of growth, the valley floor – farmland enriched by frequent flooding – held pastures and barns. Farmhouses, owned by people without the “benefit” of federal flood insurance, were higher up along the edges of the valley. But today, the valley floor is rife with development, in areas so flood-prone they even flood frequently during spring runoff.
But it is autumn rains – such as during Durango’s 1911 flood – that bring catastrophe.
That flood sent floodwaters to the top of the arches of the Main Avenue Bridge, 6 feet of water roared down 15th Street and Animas Valley crops were decimated, but most houses, built “high and dry,” were undamaged. The storm (caused by 8 inches of rain north of Silverton in 36 hours) sent walls of water into multiple river drainages and took out roads and railroads as far away as Telluride, Pagosa and Mancos.
And there was the flood of September 1970. Junction Creek quickly became a roaring monster that hit a geodesic dome creekside, blowing it to smithereens. Lightner Creek turned U.S. Highway 160 west of town into a river, flooding motels, restaurants and houses roadside.
It is not realistic, amid Colorado’s high mountains, to prevent all flood risk, but it is not “over regulatory” to tell developers, “No! That area floods often. No houses there.”
La Plata County has often failed in basic protections, which it was empowered to implement under Senate Bill 35, passed after the 1976 Big Thompson Flood killed 144 people near Estes Park in 1976.
At meeting after meeting, I watched planners and county commissioners – perhaps in pursuit of the “good growth” (apparently meaning all growth) they said we needed – approve flood plain developments.
Once, as they were about to approve a private campground at Vallecito Lake, I asked whether they knew the spot had been under 12 to 15 feet of water during the 1957 flood.
No problem, they responded, this, after all, was only a campground that people could easily leave.
Perhaps as happened at Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River last July, where a flash flood killed 27 sleeping campers and counselors?
Kathleene Parker, a 1966 graduate of Durango High School and a 1970 graduate of Fort Lewis College, now lives on very high ground, on the Pajarito Plateau high above the Rio Grande in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
